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Excerpt

First time
Adventures of a debut novelist

SUMMER 2005
Signing books at the gigantic American Book Expo, New York City, I’m drunk on air-con, espressos, jet-lag, lack of fruit. Here’s a book-seller, an ample woman, arms outstretched:

“Your debut novel! How exciting! Give me a hug!”

I don’t hug strangers.

I think of potential sales and I hug her.

A publishing party, a smoky dive-bar in Manhattan’s meat-packing district. Why all the fuss about debuts?

“Honey,” says a publicist with a Marlboro growl, “Nothing bad’s happened yet.”

SPRING 2004
Just turned 40, in bed with my two small children, we’ve all got a tummy bug. My partner hands me the phone: it’s my agent. I’m expecting bad news.

All the big publishers have “passed” on my novel  (“I didn’t love it enough,” said one). The words “don’t give up the day-job” come to mind. Well, I did already. Five years, on and off, I’ve earned nothing and worked on my novel, Hide & Seek.

“I’ve got some news to make you better,” says the agent. Canongate has offered £8000 for world rights.

Canongate. I haven’t heard of them. £8000. One third of the novel’s childcare bill.

“Brilliant,” I say. “Thanks. Well done.”

Strange things start happening.

Philip Hensher, the novelist and critic, rings up. I’d been on his Arvon course and emailed him the news. He puts me straight on Canongate. Life of Pi! Vernon God Little! Two Booker winners! Terrific publishers! Lucky you!

Canongate sell translation rights to Sweden and Italy, there are auctions in Germany, Holland and Spain; they notch up a dozen languages altogether and deals in America and Australia. I learn the publishers’ vocabulary: Marvellous! Wonderful! Blown away!

BBC Films buy an option. I go hyperbolic. We’re rich!

“You’ll get £2,500 a year for three years,” says the film agent.

But then, when it’s made?

“If it goes into production. If it does you’ll get £40,000.”

When? When?

“Five, maybe ten years down the line.”

AUTUMN 2004
“I don’t wear skirts.”

“You do now,” says my friend Heather in Hobbs’s changing rooms.

“This shirt. It’s flowery.”

“Buy it.”

I’m useless at buying clothes, haven’t done it for years, but I’m booked to do Hay, New York, Edinburgh. Readings, signings, interviews, those things publishing people call “whoring”.

Heather plays personal shopper: she’s got a good, honest eye. “How old is that feeding bra?” And a loud voice. “Darling, you can not do radio in that bra.”

I’ve performed in public before. Aged 17, a school concert, Bach’s Prelude in D Minor on guitar. In the closing bars I meet eyes with a parent and imagine her thoughts: “this girl is so talented.” The music stops. Feet shuffle. I start again from the top, sweaty fingers slamming into the frets. I play Bach every year or so — in my nightmares.

My friend Richard, a magician, offers advice. “The day you don’t feel nervous is the day you should give up,” he says. “Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. . . Run and stretch.”

“Before you go on, say the alphabet loudly, distinctly, each letter five times. . . Rest your tongue on your chin, perform your material. When you go on, the words will ping out.”

Breathe, he says, drink lots of water. After the gig, write a match report.

WINTER 2004
Frozen Cockermouth, Cumbria. My first reading. I’m drinking water, feeling good about feeling nervous, breathing heavily. Everyone on the packed bill overruns. More water. Poems about trees. Where’s the loo? More poems about trees. The audience, catatonic. What’s worse, drying up on stage, or the opposite?

I’m on. No accident. No audience response. Nothing. I rattle along, cutting paragraphs on the way. I slink off to the last open café, wash down a microwaved pizza with a cup of weak tea. Back at the B&B I run an icy bath, let it go, put on my hat and coat and go to bed. In my notebook, under, “Match Report”, I write “REHEARSE”, and list all the things I did badly. One good thing: “wore flowery shirt”.

SUMMER 2005
Hay Festival. A hot ticket. Agents, publishers and journalists flock to hear Nicole Krauss (one half of New York’s golden literary couple) and Wesley Stace (singer-song-writer-turned novelist, he’s performed with Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen).

So there we are, Nicole, Wes and me. The Guardian’s literary editor in the chair.

I do my piece. It works! People laugh at the right bits. I’m flying!

Around midnight, BBC Radio London. The Henry Kelly show. Two guests. We’ll get 40 minutes with the newspapers then go live to review them. They’re late. We get seven minutes. Here’s how I spend them: six minutes on the loo (I’ve been gulping water again) and locating the studio, one minute tearing through the papers for stories.

“Henry’s going to play two tracks back to back to buy you some time,” says the producer. Henry pumps us for stories like a regular chirpy sadist.

Hide & Seek ads go up all over the Tube. The reviews are warm. A whole page in the New York Times. I keep checking my in-box for an email about sales. “Marvellous! Blown away! We have lift off!”

It doesn’t arrive. My agent says sales are “respectable”. A Marlboro growl in my head: “Honey, nothing bad’s happened. Yet.”

WINTER 2005
The screen behind Philip Pullman flashes up snaps of short-listed authors for the YoungMinds Book of the Year. My heart pounds. The screen freezes on my picture. I’ve won! Pullman names the winning book: Thirty Years in a Turtle Neck Sweater. A happy man called Nick Warren bounces on stage and takes the £3000 prize.

Researching the next novel I read up on climate change, peak oil. Oh, God. Jesus! I’d had no idea. I curse myself for New York. We trade in our gas-guzzler for a smaller one. I drive my partner crazy unplugging appliances.

Hide & Seek is long-listed for the Prince Maurice prize – a two-week luxury break in Mauritius. Tonnes of carbon. Three short-listed authors will fly out with Tilda Swinton. Obviously I should withdraw from the long-list. I dither.

At a London party Tim Lott reads out the shortlist. I want and I don’t want to be on it. I’m not.

SPRING 2006
Translation hardbacks appear. In a few weeks in Italy Harry non ha Paura sells 16000 copies. Der Freitag nach dem Freitag nach dem Sonntag goes into Der Spiegel’s bestseller list. At home, the Daily Mail Book Club selects the paperback to launch their summer collection. Canongate prints 40,000 copies. Hide & Seek rises up the charts of debut novels to number 3. I’m making a living. Still, there’s a Marlboro whisper, “Honey. . .”